This paper discusses the possibilities for the creative use of virtual worlds as tools for learning. Initially it describes the starting points and motivations for this work. It goes on to report the experience of a course in which students in the museum studies program created exhibits in the virtual three-dimensional world of Second Life. The purpose was primarily to provide the students with competence in digital visualization and presentation techniques, but also to give them the tools to combine theoretical perspectives with practical work, and thereby stimulate creative thinking and practice. The experience shows that students, above the intial goals, also gained insight into themselves through community processes, group dynamics, the individual's own role in a working group, in relation to language processing, and the laws of copyright.

The chapter, based on a set of developed teaching scenarios, discusses how virtual worlds, in particular Second Life, can be used in student centered pedagogy; intertwining theory and practice, emphasizing process-thinking, critical perspectives, and strengthen the confidence and independence of the student. Drawing upon experiences from traditional education, Web 2.0-tools, and problem based pedagogy grounded in project work, social media, engineering, and digital humanities, this chapter presents a pedagogy based upon the concepts of participatory culture, and co-creation on the part of students in the learning process. The authors have been involved in developing the core curriculum for a term-long (four month) course for Museum Studies. A problem based, student centered pedagogy is both integrated and contrasted with traditional classroom settings, that are also part of the planning, implementation, and assessment stages of the course. Based upon the practical experience of conducting this course, the article critically discusses ICT and problem oriented learning on a general level – including the benefits and disadvantages for the student and for the teachers. How this approach to learning, from the experiences in virtual worlds, can fit in to the established structure of learning goals, lectures, examination, and assessment is questioned in the chapter, based on the experiences gathered from teaching the course.

This chapter is both a summary and a glimpse of the future regarding the twelve months of activity in Second Life by the digital humanities lab and studio HUMlab at Umeå University. Art and cooperation have been the emphasis in the early stages of the HUMlab Second Life project. In the few months prior to the authoring of this chapter things began to move quite rapidly for HUMlab in Second Life with numerous projects emerging in relation to the large HUMlab Island. Through a constructivist pedagogical model, and lots of trial and error many lessons have been learnt by all involved. Some of the more interesting learning experiences are related in this chapter.

Universities around the world have increasingly turned to digital infrastructures as a way to revamp the arts and humanities. This article contributes a fresh understanding by examining the material development of HumlabX, a research laboratory for digital humanities at Umeå University, Sweden. Specifically, we approach the empirical case as a timeline of research funding, projects, events, and deliverables to examine how the research laboratory as an organizational and material space developed and evolved in relation to new technology investments. Based on our analysis, we argue that while digital research infrastructures can, indeed, stimulate innovation in and around research, aimed to produce new knowledge, digital technologies carry social and material implications that affect organizational processes. We show that while knowledge production processes at HumlabX were highly influenced by the infrastructural legacy of the past, they indeed directed scholars toward innovation. By discussing these implications in detail, we move beyond the debate of humanities qua digital, and demonstrate the need for scholars of digital humanities to engage in the development of policies for digital research infrastructures. Using a Swedish case study, we argue that research laboratories for the digital humanities must be scrutinized and should be fully exposed as socio-material organizations that develop, and should develop, over time. In particular, we stress the need to ensure that digital humanities laboratories are sustainable and open for redevelopment.

The American televangelist and healer Benny Hinn was invited to host three meetings at a Christian conference in Uppsala 2010. The hosting institution was the Swedish charismatic Christian denomination Livets Ord. Benny Hinn has been invited by them several times before, and it can be said he is popular in some parts of Christianity, but considered rather controversial in others. The invitation and the whole event spurred an online debate, mainly on blogs and Twitter, where Livets Ord and Benny Hinn were discussed and scrutinized. This article will focus on describing and analyzing how the event was perceived and evaluated, primarily in the digital media, before, during and after the event. The churches are currently attempting to reach new audiences through digital channels, and hope to support their adherents in their everyday life beyond the meetings and activities hosted at their physical church building. However, as seen in the article, entering the digital era is not always unproblematic or straight-forward. What is of particular interest here is how the digital media relocate the event – how this opens up a previously closed event, and potentially flattens out and questions traditional authorities.

The underlying question for this article is: – “is what is now happening online really new, and something never seen outside the internet, and before the internet?” Previous research has to a large extent emphasized the distinctive characteristics of internet culture, as separated from what is happening in the “real/physical” world. That is a approach also valid for how churches online have been seen, and there has been an established distinction between religion online (religious churches and representatives with an online presence), and online religion (religion conducted and practiced in an online environment). However, technical advantages in recent years (which also has changed our behavior online) has made this distinction more fluid and difficult to defend. But there is also a historical continuity of using modern media within the church, making it difficult to claim that contemporary transformations within the Christian sphere are unique. There are several historical examples of how media use changes religious faith and practices throughout time. This article will put digital churches into a contemporary and historical context in order to discuss if it is relevant to uphold a distinction between churches online vis-à-vis churches offline.

The subject of this dissertation is the confessional revivalist organisation Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen (EFS – approximately the Swedish Evangelical Mission Society) between 1856 and 1910. EFS was founded in 1856 in a Pietistic tradition, and its aim was to revitalise from within what was seen as a too dormant State church, and also to counteract the influence of the emerging free churches.

The study has five main sections. The introductory part consists of the theoretical framework and the historical context. In the second chapter EFS’ aims and expectations are studied on a national level. The third chapter examines the content of published and distributed tracts. The fourth chapter focuses on the activities of the itinerant colporteurs, and the fifth and final part studies the work of a local EFS-congregation.

The aim of the dissertation is twofold. The first objective is to describe the transformation EFS underwent during the period studied. This process is described in terms related to Jürgen Habermas’ expression “public sphere”. When EFS was founded, as a board, it can be seen as one of other middle- and upper-class associations, and as such a part of the Swedish public sphere. By 1910 EFS had begun to move away from the Swedish State church and had become more like contemporary popular movements and free churches – it had started to take the shape of an limited alternative sphere, a denomination.

The second aim is to use EFS as an example to describe and analyse the changed perception of religion during the second half of the 19th century. This change is described as a process of secularisation. Secularisation is seen here as the process that turned religion into an individual, voluntary and optional act of faith, among other religious and non-religious alternatives, for ordinary people. Of particular interest is the paradoxical relation between revivalism and secularisation. Various revivalist movements emphasised the personal relation to God and the individual right to interpret the word of God. The individual choice for salvation was also stressed within revivalism. These movements also created new alternatives to the all-embracing State church. Thus both the position of the Church, and the universal claims of Christianity in general, were undermined.

The transformation EFS underwent is seen as an adaptation to the rise of modern society, which became more pluralistic and hence competitive during the final decades of the 19th century. This development meant that new strategies were required for religious organisations overall, in order for them to be able to compete and flourish.

This dissertation examines the relation between revivalism and secularisation through the Swedish Evangelical-Lutheran organisation Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen (EFS - approximately the Swedish Evangelical Mission Society) between 1856 and 1910.

Secularisation is a problematic expression, but here it is used to describe a changing perception of religion in terms of personalisation and individualisation of beliefs.

Christianity provided by the State church was compulsory and self-evident in earlyiL i.1. 19 century Sweden. In mid 19 century the homogeneous society began to fall apart; a transformation related to modernisation. Within the religious sphere, different revivals undermined the Church’s hegemony. EFS was founded in an attempt to safeguard the confessional content of the revival.

In the beginning of the examined period EFS’ antagonists were mainly nonconfessional branches of Christianity. During the latest quarter of the century the situation changed under the influence of a more pluralistic society. EFS and the Church became alternatives among other ideologies and lifestyles, which had to be marketed and sold. On a national level EFS’ competitors now became different secularists, and EFS also started to form its own identity separated from the Church. Locally EFS adapted to the new market situation by downgrading the specific Lutheran content and instead emphasising the social aspect. This transformation can be described in terms of secularisation, denominationalisation, and individualisation of beliefs.

This article studies how the Laestadian movement (a Christian confessional revivalist movement that is sceptical of technology) uses digital media in general, and the internet in particular, in its work. In a time when churches on a large scale are concerned with how to communicate with people through digital media, the Laestadian movement choses another path, based upon other assumptions and choices. The focus here is on how congregations and representatives use digital media, and not on individual and private use, and this article will focus primarily on Sweden and Finland. Based on interviews with representatives and by mapping the congregations' online presence, this article provides an interpretation of the use of the internet within Laestadianism. Through this group, we see how ideology, faith, and practices regulate a restricted, negotiated, and conscious use of the internet, which challenges any preconceptions regarding use and effect of the internet on religion. This case study therefore gives additional perspective for understanding the role of digital media within and in relation to institutionalized Christianity.

Is the internet a means for individual empowerment and collective upheaval against oppressive powers, or is it a tool to monitor and control people in the hands of authoritarian rulers? This article addresses the “dyophysite” or what can be called the double nature of internet. That is a dualism that goes back to the origin of internet with its roots simultaneously in American West coast counterculture and the cold war militarism of the 1960s. Within the Christian community, this dualism plays out as the internet is viewed in a paradoxical matter. Even as cyberspace equips evangelicals to connect with other believers, it can introduce Christians to pagan ideas, tempting misbehavior and destructive communities.